C.R.E.A.M.

after Wu-Tang, after Morgan Parker

in the morning i think about money

green horned lord of my waking

forest in which i stumbled toward no salvation

prison of emerald & pennies

in my wallet i keep anxiety & a condom

i used to sell my body but now my blood spoiled

all my favorite songs warn me to get money

i’d rob a bank but i’m a poet

i’m so broke i’m a genius

if i was white, i’d take pictures of other pictures & sell them for six figures (happened)

i come from sharecroppers who come from slaves who do not come from kings

sometimes i pay the weed man before i pay the light bill

sometimes is a synonym for often

i just want a rich white sugar daddy & i’ll be straight

i feel most colored when i’m looking at my bank account

when i scream ball so hard motherfuckas wanna find me

sally may a motherfucka

i spent one summer stealing from three different ragstocks

always bought a ring

if i went to jail i’d live rent free but there is no way to avoid making white people richer

a prison is a plantation made of stone & steel

being locked up for selling drugs = being locked up for trying to feed your loves

i used to help him bag it up

a bald fade cost 20 bones nowadays

my grandmama is great at saving money

what’s a blacker tax than blackness?

before my grandfather passed he showed me where he hid his money & his gun

what cost more than being poor?

my aunt can’t hold on to a dollar, a job, her mind

how much the power ball this week?

imma print my own money & be my own god & live forever in a green frame

i was warm within my mother’s broke

don’t ask me about my taxes

the b in debt is a silent black trapped

old confession & new

sounds crazy, but it feels like truth. i’ll tell you again.

maybe i practiced for it, auditioned even, applied.

what the doctor told me was not news, was legend

catching up to me, a blood whispering

you were born for this. i tell you—i was not shocked

but confirmed. enlisted? i am on the battlefield

& i am the field & the battle & the casualty & the gun.

my war is but a rumor & is not war. at the end of me

there is a boy i barely remember, barely ever knew

saying, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry.

so now that it’s an old fact, can it be useful?

that which hasn’t killed you yet can pay the rent

if you play it right. keep it really real

many niggas gettin’ paid off the cruelty

of whites, why not make the blood

a business? take it. here’s what happened to me.